The 11 winners of the Department for Education’s curriculum fund have been revealed this morning.

The lead schools are listed below, with their regional schools commissioner region in brackets:

• Oasis Academy South Bank (south east and south London)
• Pimlico Primary (south central and north-west London)
• Reach Academy Feltham (South central and north-west London)
• Sacred Heart Catholic High School (North)
• Saint Martin’s Catholic Academy (East Midlands and Humber)
• Thornden School (south east and south London)
• Trinity Academy Halifax (Lancashire and West Yorkshire)
• Ark Bolingbroke Academy (south east and south London)
• Kendrick Academy (south central and north-west London)
• The Cherwell School (south central and north-west London)
• West London Free School (south central and north west London)

The aim behind the grants is for the lead schools to share and pilot high-quality curriculum programmes to better understand how such programmes can be implemented to reduce workload and improve teaching.

Each of the schools will pilot their programmes in six or more participant schools, using programmes in science, history and geography. In total they will work with over 60 other schools in 2019, with most starting work this month.

The DfE said that to support the pilot it would commission independent research to find out how schools use complete curriculum programmes, and how the improvements they make can be used to refine further programme implementation specifications.

Earlier this month, Tes revealed concerns about the rushed launch and squeezed timescales for the fund, with the successful bidders informed just days before the Christmas holidays that they had to begin delivering in January.

And last July, the government came under fire because of its decision to open bids for the fund at the start of the summer break - with a deadline two weeks into the start of the new academic year.